Outsourcing the White House to Whitehouse

I feel like this was a pretty smart assessment of things from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) last night on Rachel Maddow. To be honest, after hearing it, I'm not sure why more Congressional Democrats haven't been voicing the same thing. The gist of what he's saying is that it's smart and likely necessary for Obama and White House officials to use the "we've got to move forward" line ad nauseam. It doesn't make sense politically for them to appear to be going after Bush and company; despite Greenwald's constant citing of polls showing Americans are in favor of prosecutions, it's my personal opinion that many would quickly pull an aboutface once the criminal proceedings grew ugly and lengthy. But aside from that -- obviously Obama has a lot on his plate. As Joe Klein said yesterday:

Actually, I will concede one thing to Greenwald: I've been opposed to prosecuting the Bush miscreants--for political reasons, mostly. The President has put an awful lot of important domestic and foreign business on the table and this whole issue of what went on under Bush, and is no longer happening now, is a diversion from getting the important stuff done.

The initial point is right: Obama has a lot to do, and it makes no sense on the political or policy fronts for his White House to be out on the frontlines with pitchforks over Bush and friends' war crimes. HOWEVER, Klein's conclusion -- that this should totally rule out prosecutions, and a "look forward not backward" approach should be a blanket one over the entire government -- is terrible. The Department of Justice and the Senate Judiciary Committee can still pick through this and present their findings to, like, the people that you typically present findings to.

I agree that Obama, and by extension, Gibbs, should be paying this scant heed in briefings and press conferences. In theory, I might personally wish he would lay down the fucking law one time; "We're going to treat Yoo with all the care afforded to William Wallace." Yet I think anyone can agree it just doesn't make sense for him to be leading on this.

But I still think there should be investigations and prosecutions. I don't think these two ideas should be unreconcilable.

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